[dalinian]

Time, perhaps, to inject a little rationality, humanism and analytic philosophy from one of the last century's great anti-war activists and Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell.

On the 'choices' of Susie:

• "Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution."
• "In America everybody is of the opinion that [s]he has no social superiors, since all [wo]men are equal, but [s]he does not admit that [s]he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all [wo]men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards."

On the failings of Glyn:

• "Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
• "Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
• "Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country."

On the monotony of the Plastics:

• "Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
• "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
• "Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves."
• "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."

On the dullness of Imogen:

• "Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it."

On the commodity fetishism of Thikki:

• "To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." Like that great con, bottled water.
• "It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly."
• "It has been said that [wo]man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this."

On the 'faith' of Aisleyne:

• "The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."
• "So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."
• "What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite."
• "Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."
• "[Wo]man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, [s]he will be satisfied with bad ones."
• "There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a [wo]man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths."

On the challenges of Lea:

• "Sin is geographical." Or perhaps in Lea's case, topographical and/or pornographical.
• "The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts."
• "Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."
• "It is obvious that 'obscenity' is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means 'anything that shocks the magistrate.'." Such as, er, the products of Lea's porn flic 'career'?

On the paternalism of Richard:

• "The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them."
• "Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so."

On the goodness of Pete:

• "Anything you're good at contributes to happiness."
• "Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."
• "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."
• "The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy – I mean that if you are happy you will be good."
• "It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals." Like 'If only everybody loved one another more...' coming back to bite you on the bum!

On DS:BB FMs championing their favourite and castigating their most hated HMs:

• "All movements go too far."
• "I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
• "Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality."
• "In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."
• "It is a waste of energy to be angry with a [wo]man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go."
• "The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic."
• "I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine."

On the eviction night baying and booing mob:

• "If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years."

On the culture of back-stabbing:

• "No one gossips about other people's secret virtues."
• "Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear."
• "Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd."
• "The coward wretch whose hand and heart / Can bear to torture aught below, / Is ever first to quail and start / From the slightest pain or equal foe."
• "Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power."

On strategies for winning BB:

• "The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation."
• "The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge."
• "Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change."
• "Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom."
• "To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it."
• "The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile."

On the great BB experience:

• "War does not determine who is right – only who is left."
• "Democracy is the process by which people choose the [wo]man who'll get the blame."
• "This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities."
• "The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell." Oh, and also BB.
• "To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level."
• "A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short."
• "In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying."
• "One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

On compiling [GeniusName] [verb]s BB threads:

• "The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
• "There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge."

Companion threads also available:

• Oscar Wilde comments upon BB
• Albert Einstein comments upon BB
• George Bernard Shaw critiques BB
• Maya Angelou examines BB
• George Orwell vivisects BB
• David Bowie dissects BB
• Dorothy Parker castigates BB
• and also The Smiths critiques BB by Emzi

[Dewain deBley]

On the Transience of DS:BB forum posting, or Why I am not a Cretan (Are all Cretans liars ?)

All lthis fine work, only for it to soon scroll down into the void that is page 2, never to be seen again ! Particularly after 10:00pm tonight, with the countless Ash hate threads !

Told you - Page 2 at 9:20 pm !

[dalinian]

Thanks, comrade. I know what you mean about the futility of effort expended vs. forum transience.

With each new thread in this series, I post a forward pointing link back in the previous threads, so they briefly reappear on Page One.

Other than that, I hope that FMs who enjoy what they've read will just post a quick reply saying as little as 'thanks' or as much as they like: from highlighting their fave quote to adding one or more of their own.

If anyone has any other ideas on how to make this series' appearances less transient, please do post them below. Ta!

[SWW (SWW)]

*doesn't get the use of the term 'thikki' in these threads*

[dalinian]

Originally Posted by SWW (SWW)

*doesn't get the use of the term 'thikki' in these threads*

Sorry SWW (SWW), don't get you banter -- are you saying you object to the term 'Thikki'?
Or that you don't understand why some DS:BB FMs (including me, although I wasn't the first) might light-heartedly concatenate Thick and Nikki?

[Cos Ti]

Originally Posted by dalinian

Time, perhaps, to inject a little rationality, humanism and analytic philosophy from one of the last century's great anti-war activists and Nobel Laureate Bertrand Russell.

On the monotony of the Plastics:

• "Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."
• "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts."
• "Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves."
• "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."

On the dullness of Imogen:

• "Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it."

The dame Mymogen is far from dull.

It is not for nothing that she is universally acclaimed as the BB in BB - Best Babe in Big Brother.

Her famous belly dances are known from Scandinavia and all over the Far East with much acclaim.

It is no fault of hers that she is a melter of men's minds, as Sleazer and now Tall Man have found out to their frustration.

Beauty is as beauty does.

No apologies necessary.